Mike Norman Economics

The Russian and American (very different) official statements.The Vineyard of the SakerVladimir Putin and Joseph Biden: Telephone conversation, December 30, 2021The Sakerhttp://thesaker.is/telephone-conversations-with-us-president-joseph-biden/

Wasn't expecting such a slowdown. Could be end-of-year stuff or the new normal, but at the moment looking soft.

Joe Biden’s rationale for his own presidency was that he could bring oligarchs and working people together and hammer out a compromise that worked for both. The apparent death of his legislative agenda proves what a laughable fantasy that was....JacobinBiden’s Agenda Is on Its Death Bed Because the Interests of the Rich and Poor Are IrreconcilableBranko Marcetichttps://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/bbb-infrastructure-business-manchin-sinema-democrats/

Consortium NewsPATRICK LAWRENCE: Putin Speakshttps://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/28/patrick-lawrence-putin-speaks/TASSFirst S-550 air defense systems enter service in Russia — [anonymous] sourcehttps://tass.com/defense/1382133Reminiscence of the FutureOK, This Is An Official WOW!!Andrei Martyanov, former USSR naval officer and expert on Russian military and naval issues.http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/12/ok-this-is-official-wow.htmlWar On The RocksSTRATEGIC AMBIGUITY AND THE RISK OF WAR...

Nice try from the angle of mental models, but totally wrong about the MMT mental model. No indication that the author has read Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth, aand if he did, he missed the point — it's about availability of real resources and the rest is accounting. The accounting, or failure to understand it, can obscure where currency comes from (issuance, which he realizes), how it is produced and distributed through the central bank, and how fiscal operations including taxation and...

EconospeakA Free Market is Always Full of Cheap IdeasSandwichmanhttp://econospeak.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-free-market-is-always-full-of-cheap.html

More potential leisure.Zero HedgeFirst-Ever Fully-Autonomous Semi-Truck With No-Human On Board Traverses Arizona HighwayTyler Durden

Interesting tidbits on the history of economics and Wicksell's role if that is your thing. Wicksell was somewhat of a precursor of Post Keynesianism and MMT, although his view of money is not mentioned specifically in this article. In addition, he was an interesting fellow — a (non-Marxist) social activist, for example in contrast to the amoral stance of conventional economics "as a science."EconospeakPaul Samuelson On Knut WicksellJ. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business...

Numbers and trends look bullish oil

Just before the holidays I wrote an article for Newsweek arguing that the official basis for Federal Reserve policy was at risk of coming unwound due to the present uptick in inflation. My basic argument was that the Fed and other central banks act as if they have some ‘objective’ criteria for setting interest rates while in the real world they are constantly worrying about upsetting financial markets. This leads them to the Catch-22 position today: should they raise rates to fight inflation...